Florida's immigrant inmates may be deported

[flashl]

As the prison population swells, officials are weighing a plan to deport immigrant inmates to their native countries before they've done their time.

Florida officials want to send a message to immigrants who are not U.S. citizens and are doing prison time for nonviolent crimes: Go home. The airfare's on us.

The Florida Department of Corrections and Sen. Mike Bennett, a Bradenton Republican, are discussing the proposal with federal officials as a way to relieve the pressures of immigration and to help curb the explosive growth of Florida's prison population, which could hit 100,000 by year's end.

The go-home offer would extend only to the estimated 2,500 immigrants -- whether here legally or illegally -- who are not violent, are not U.S. citizens and who agree to return to and remain in their country of origin.

''It costs something like $20,000 a year to house an inmate, feed him and watch over him, or we can get rid of these guys for like a $600 plane ticket,'' Bennett said. ``Why would anyone oppose that?''

No one did Tuesday during a meeting of the Senate criminal justice committee, though assistant Corrections secretary George Sapp noted the Legislature and DOC have to work through some red tape.

Miami Herald - Read Full Text

It's interesting to watch Florida and California wrestle with their HUGE prison populations.

At one time, the prison industrial complex (PIC) was allowed to freely consume larger and larger shares of the states' budgets, in the same manner as the military industrial complex (MIC) consumed the federal budget.

One day, every one will know that prisons, OTOH, hid unemployment stats, and on the other, hid factories behind fences that stole jobs from local economies.